And yet his “Bible in Spain” had still a regular sale. His “Lavengro” and “Romany Rye” were still allowed by all competent critics to be among the most delightful books in the language. Indeed, at his death, Borrow was what he now is, and what he will continue to be long after Time has played havoc with nine-tenths of the writers whose names are week by week, and day by day, “paragraphed” in the papers as “literary celebrities”—an English classic. Apart from Borrow’s undoubted genius as a writer the subject-matter of his writings has an interest that will not wane but will go on growing. The more the features of our “Beautiful England,” to use his own phrase, are changed by the multitudinous effects of the railway system, the more attraction will readers find in books which depict her before her beauty was marred—books which depict her in those antediluvian days when there was such a thing as space in the island—when in England there was a sense of distance, that sense without which there can be no romance—when the stage-coach was in its glory—when the only magician who could convey man and his belongings at any rate of speed beyond man’s own walking rate was the horse—the beloved horse whose praises Borrow loved to sing, and whose ideal was reached in the mighty “Shales”—when the great high roads were alive, not merely with the bustle of business, but with real adventure for the traveller—days and scenes which Borrow better than any one else could paint. A time will come, I say, when not only books full of descriptive genius, like “Lavengro,” but even such comparatively tame descriptions of England as the “Gleanings in England and Wales” of the now forgotten East Midlander, Samuel Jackson Pratt, will be read with a new interest. But why was Borrow so entirely forgotten at the moment of his death? Simply because, like many another man of genius and many a scholar, he refused to figure in the literary arena—went on his way quietly influencing the world, but mixing only with his private friends. THEODORE WATTS. AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. In the following pages I have endeavoured to describe a dream, partly of study, partly of adventure, in which will be found copious notices of books, and many descriptions of life and manners, some in a very unusual form. The scenes of action lie in the British Islands;—pray be not displeased, gentle reader, if perchance thou hast imagined that I was about to conduct thee to distant lands, and didst promise thyself much instruction and entertainment from what I might tell thee of them. I do assure thee that thou hast no reason to be displeased, inasmuch as there are no countries in the world less known by the British than these selfsame British Islands, or where more strange things are every day occurring, whether in road or street, house or dingle.